.

"We both know our own limitations

that's why we're strong.

Now that we've spent some time apart,

we're leading each other our of the dark."

-Colbie Caillat

What if there were no stars in the sky? Once upon a time, there weren't. But if it weren't for the development of stars in the sky billions of years ago, we wouldn't be here today. Because of this, we are all connected. Each one of us has a greater purpose in life, a destiny that was written in the stars. We each have a unique purpose for existing. Some of us may never know what that purpose is, but that doesn't stop us from spending our whole lives searching for it. We are all wayfarers, letting destiny take its course like a ship on the waves. And as we search for our greater purpose in life, the reason our stars shine, darkness will surely find us. But without the dark, one can never see the light.

Although Neal had become discouraged after years spent away from home, from the people he loved, he now knew that the darkness couldn't last forever. And whether it be days, weeks, months, or even years until he could return home, he knew it would all work out in the end. Destiny would come through for him eventually.

And it had, if ever so briefly for those short days spent with his friends that summer in Surf City. That spark was enough to ignite the hope he had buried so deep within himself that he'd forgotten it was even there.

The day after he'd reunited with Emma and Wendy, Neal awoke with a renewed energy that he hadn't felt in a long time. He showered, dressed, ate breakfast, and went to work, the same as he did every day. But today felt different.

He spent part of the morning replacing a couple of belts that had worn down on the ferris wheel. Once that was done and the ride could begin operation for the day, Jack told him there wasn't much that needed repaired at the moment and sent him to go help Robin set targets at the paintball shooting game. It was a nice change of scenery from the usual work he did alone repairing rides. He enjoyed being able to joke around with his friend while still getting work done.

While they worked, Neal told Robin about what had happened the day before. Robin couldn't help but be ecstatic for his friend, knowing how much it tore at Neal to be forced away from the people he loved.

"They're coming down for lunch… I want you to meet them." Neal said as he leaned against the counter of the wooden booth while a tourist took their turn shooting paintballs at an array of targets.

"I'd love to." Robin said, attention momentarily distracted when the tourist earned themselves a prize by hitting three of the targets. The tourist selected a plush tiger, and Robin handed it to them with a smile. Then, he turned back to his friend while they waited for the next person to decide to try out the game.

"There's something I need to tell you, first." Neal said, a nervousness gathering in his throat as he spoke.

"Okay?" Robin asked, giving Neal his full attention.

"I, uh… I didn't exactly move here of my own free will." Neal started, knowing that if he didn't confide in Robin now, he might never have the guts to again. He'd spotted Killian among the crowd at the carnival yet again today. Jones never failed to make sure he was where he was supposed to be.

"What do you mean?" Robin asked patiently.

"When I was fourteen, back in Maine, I returned home to be told that my mother had been shot, and my father was the only suspect. They arrested him. He's still locked up to this day." Neal crossed his arms as the memory replayed itself in his mind. "A couple of nights later, a strange guy showed up and took me away. Killian Jones. He said he was taking me to safety. Turns out he was taking me here. And when we got here, imagine my surprise when we went into the house and there stands my mother."

"It was a set up…" Robin said quietly, catching on.

"My dad was given a life sentence, I had to move a thousand miles from home and change my name, forced to live a life I had no choice in. All so that Killian Jones could be with my mother." He scoffed. It sounded even more screwed up when he said it aloud.

"You changed your name?" Robin asked, curious as to what else about his friend he didn't know.

"Well, Jones changed my name. So they couldn't track me down." Neal debated for a moment before adding, "Name's Baelfire." He bit his lower lip nervously while waiting for a reply.

"Quite a unique name." Robin said, and Neal was relieved that when he looked at his friend, he saw no signs of animosity. He'd worried that Robin would be upset at him for not telling him all of this sooner.

Neal laughed softly and said, "Yeah, I guess so." His attention was grabbed then as a familiar head of blonde hair weaved through the crowd, a brunette following right behind. "Hey!" He went to the front of the booth and leaned over the counter to greet each of the women with a short hug.

Stepping back, Neal waved for Robin to come over. "This is my friend, Robin Maguire. Robin, this is Emma Swan and Wendy Darling." He introduced the three of them with a content smile on his face.

"Pleasure." Robin said, his accent strong.

"We were just going to go grab some lunch. Care to join us?" Neal asked Robin.

"I'd love to, if that's alright with you." Robin answered with a pointed look to Emma and Wendy. Both women nodded in agreement.

"Well that's settled. Allow me to run and get Will to cover the booth for a bit." Robin said, excusing himself from the group to go track down the young Scarlet.

After Robin slid out of the booth, Neal turned back to Emma and Wendy. "He seems nice." Wendy said, with a glance in the direction that Robin had gone.

"Yeah, he is." Neal said softly. "I couldn't do it without him." He didn't have to specify what "it" was. They both knew. They only hoped that Robin would not only help their friend to deal with what had happened to him, but to move on from it as well.

Robin returned a few minutes later, Will Scarlet at his side.

"Hey, thanks for covering the booth for us, man." Neal said, patting Will on the shoulder in greeting before slipping out of the booth. "My friends here are visiting from out of state." He introduced Will to Emma and Wendy and Will shook each of their hands with a charming smile on his face.

"Does everyone down here have a British accent?" Wendy joked as the four of them walked away from the carnival, causing them to all laugh.

"You've got something against Brits?" Robin tossed back at her, a teasing glint in his eyes and a smile on his face. It was amazing to Neal how quickly Robin had settled into the same friendly atmosphere that he and his Storybrooke friends had always known. He wondered what it would have been like if Robin had grown up with them in Maine. He figured he'd fit in well.

Lunch went rather well. They arrived at the diner and opted to sit at one of the round picnic tables outside, since it was a nice day. They kept the conversation light, mostly learning more about one another and trading stories.

"So it just walked right up to the fire?" Robin's tone was disbelieving.

"This cat wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed." Neal replied, laughing. "We'd never seen it before in our lives, but it just wandered up to our fire, staring at the flames with wide eyes. Except it had never taken a fire safety course, because it got a little too close. Burned all of its whiskers off."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Robin said. "Surely some sort of natural instinct would have kicked it telling it not to stick its face in an open flame." The level of disbelief in his tone rose with each word.

"You'd be surprised," Emma said between laughs.

Soon, they'd finished their meals, and Neal and Robin had to get back to work. As they walked back to the carnival, the four of them continued to swap stories and laughs, and to an outsider, it'd be easy to think that they'd spent years together doing just that.

When they got back, Robin went back to his earlier post at the paintball game, thanking Will for covering for him during lunch. Wendy followed him over to the booth, saying that she wanted to give the game a try.

That left Emma and Neal, bringing up the rear. Neal walked with his hands in the pockets of his shorts, contemplating his next move before he finally said, "Hey, Emma…"

"Yeah?" She turned back to him and realized he'd stopped walking. She stood in front of him, patiently waiting for him to continue.

He hesitated, knowing that what he was about to ask had consequences. He desperately wanted to spend every second that he could with Emma. He imagined the possibilities, but knew that all too soon, she would have to leave and he could not follow. When it came down to it, though, wouldn't it be better to be happy, if only for a short time, than to spend his whole life wishing for what could have been?

Making his decision, Neal cleared his throat softly before asking, "Would you, uh… Would you want to have dinner with me later?"

They were both silent for a moment while his words registered with Emma. Finally, a small smile started on her face as Emma asked, "Like a date?"

Neal hesitated for a moment, knowing that this was a bad idea. He was walking in dangerous territory. Spending more time with Emma would mean saying goodbye would be just that much harder. And he would have to say goodbye. Because Emma simply could not stay here and she'd go home to where he could not follow her.

But all of these thoughts slipped his mind the second he looked into her eyes. Before he could stop them, the words were out of his mouth, "Yeah, if you want to call it that." He smiled at her hopefully. He'd pay for this decision later, but the smile she gave him in return was worth the hell he'd go through later.

"I'd like that."

He nodded his head slowly, though the situation didn't ask it of him. His smile never faltered when he responded, "How about I come by and get you after I get off work tonight?"

"Sounds like a plan."

"Alright, then."

"Alright."

"I'll see you then."

Wendy came over then, and the two girls excused themselves, saying that they'd let Neal and Robin get back to work. As Wendy led her away, Emma turned and gave Neal one more smile over her shoulder. He smiled back, thinking that this might just be worth it after all.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"I am freaking out."

Emma was pacing back and forth across the wooden floor boards in her room of the beach house. Wendy sat on her bed with an amused expression on her face, not used to seeing her friend get this worked up over anything. When they'd returned from their lunch with Robin and Bae, Emma had told Wendy about the date, and Wendy had proceeded to jump up and down in the standard best friend fashion. Now, she sat watching as Emma search fruitlessly for something to wear while she ignored all of Wendy's comments about how her clothes didn't matter.

"You know what? I'm just going to pick something, and you're going to wear it, and you're not going to second guess yourself anymore, and you're going to go on your little date, and you're going to damn well enjoy yourself."

"That's a lot of 'ands'…" Emma said quietly, sheepishly handing over the blouse that she'd been holding. Wendy took the garment and in turn handed Emma one of her favorite shirts, a lightweight plaid button-down shirt, made up of different shades of purple, as well as a white tank top. Then, she dug around in Emma's drawers for a pair of grey skinny jeans, and without a word, she tossed those onto the bed next to Emma as well. She sauntered out of the room and came back a moment later with a pair of black flats in her hand. She set them next to the other apparel on the bed, took a step back, and looked at her friend with her arms crossed.

"Now you go shower and get dressed before I have to tell Bae that you won't be joining him because you were too freaked out to spend any time alone with him."

This was, perhaps, one of the things Emma loved most about Wendy. She wasn't about to let her get away with anything that would make her unhappy.

She thanked Wendy with a small smile, disappearing into the bathroom with her change of clothes in hand.

An hour later, she was back to pacing. This time, in the living room. Like before, Wendy sat watching her from the couch, warning her that if she wore any holes in the floor of their rental house, she wasn't paying for it.

Finally, a knock on the door froze Emma in her tracks and she stared in the direction of the door with a nervous expression on her face. Slow steps took her out of the room and down the small hallway to the door. After a deep breath to calm herself, she opened the door and was greeted by Bae's to-die-for grin. His dark hair was still wet from a shower and it stuck up in the air in such a way that Emma had to wonder how he made it look so good. Emma was worried that she'd dressed too casually for whatever he'd have planned, and she was relieved to see him dressed in a light grey Henley shirt and olive-colored shorts. Emma's only thought was that he looked damn attractive… and she was leaving in just a few days…

Oh, she was so screwed.

"Hey!" She said after she quickly took in his appearance. She noticed that he had a red sweatshirt in his hand, so she added, "Let me just grab a jacket and we can go?" She didn't know why, but it came out as a question.

"Sure," he said, taking a step into the hallway as she went to grab her own sweatshirt.

Wendy came out from where she'd been getting ready to settle down with a book in the living room and greeted him with a smile. "Bae! You look great!"

"Why thank you," he shot back at her, grinning and pulling her in for a quick hug.

Emma came back, then, and Wendy said, "Well, you two have fun. I've got my own date with Augustus Waters."

Bae shot a dumbfounded look at both of them, and Emma chuckled before explaining, "She's been reading this book every night all week… apparently, she's in love with a fictional teenage cancer patient." Bae, still somewhat dazed, just nodded and threw in a quiet laugh for good measure.

"You ready?" Emma asked, saving him from having to learn any more about Wendy's literary interests than he had to. He nodded again with a short "Yeah. Whenever you are."

As they walked away from the house and towards the beach, Neal looked straight ahead as he said, "Look, Emma… Before we spend anymore time together, there's something I need to tell you."

"Okay?" Emma said slowly, wondering where he was going with this.

"I uh… well, I guess the best way to start is to say I didn't leave Storybrooke because I wanted to." They were at the beach now, sand shifting under their feet as they both stopped walking and turned to face one another. Bae spoke quietly, though the lingering crowd at the carnival was still a little way off along the shore. "I was brought here, by someone dangerous. And as long as he's around, I can never go home. I can never…" His voice cracked a little as his emotions took ahold of him. "I can never truly be with you as long as he's around. He's protecting a secret so big that I can't put my life or yours in harms way by stepping into his line of fire."

Emma was quiet while he spoke, letting his words sink in. She'd figured that whatever they had here would only last so long, but she'd never imagined that there would be such a risk involved.

"The only reason I allowed myself to ask you out in the first place was because I knew that he didn't know who you were. He doesn't know that you're from there…" He paused again before adding, "He doesn't know what you mean to me."

"And what's that, Bae?" Emma said, her voice quiet and nervous.

"I told you in that letter, Emma…" He said, looking her in the eyes, "I love you."

A sad smile crossed Emma's face. Everything he'd told her loomed over her like a demon, knowing that anything that happened here, with him, was only temporary. It had to be.

"But when you go back," Bae said after a brief silence, "you can't tell anyone that you saw me. You can't… You have to forget this ever happened. If anyone tries to come after me, I have no doubts that he'll kill me."

Not knowing how else to respond, Emma stepped forward with watery eyes, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her forehead to his chest. His sweatshirt dropped to the sand as his arms came up and wrapped themselves around her shoulders, holding her close, pretending, if only for a moment, that this could be their happy ending.

They pulled apart after a few moments, and Bae said, "What do you say we make the most of the time we have?"

Emma nodded in response, and Bae picked up his jacket again. The two began walking down the beach, in the opposite direction of the carnival. Neither knew quite what to say, or how to act around one another. What was the protocol for dates that you knew were going to be short-lived? Finally, Bae reached out and took her hand in his. They glanced at one another as they walked, and Emma gave his hand a squeeze with a smile.

"You know, I still have to remind myself that you're actually here," Emma said. "I spent so long not knowing…"

'I know," he responded, his voice tightening for a moment before relaxing again. "And I'm sorry."

"Hey. You don't have to apologize to me for anything. You said yourself this whole thing is out of your control."

"But if you had known…"

"It wouldn't have changed anything. I'd still be pining over a boy that I'd fallen in love with before I even knew what love was, and you'd still be here. You need to know, Bae, that I don't blame you for anything. If I did, would I be here now?"

"I suppose not…" he said, his attention grabbed by something ahead of them on the beach.

"What's that?" Emma asked.

"That, my dear," Bae said, waving the hand that held his sweatshirt towards what she could now was a blanket draped across the sand, "is dinner." A few more strides and they stopped right beside the blue woven blanket. A picnic basket sat in one corner while rocks helped keep the other three corners of the blanket from blowing in the breeze while he'd gone to get Emma. A smile spread across Emma's face as he led her to sit beside him on the blanket.

"When you said dinner, I was thinking maybe the diner again, but this," she gestured around them while he smiled and began pulling food out of the basket, "… this is so much better." She thanked him when he handed her a sandwich wrapped in plastic wrap.

"It's nothing fancy, but as I recall, you never did like the idea of sitting down to a big meal in a fancy restaurant."

"You would be correct." She smiled at him, taking the offered sandwich. Bae then pulled out a small plate of assorted vegetables to go with their sandwiches, as well as a container of flavorful dip. He set the items between them so that they could share them.

"Now usually these sorts of things end with a bottle of wine, but I assume that's not on tonight's menu." Emma joked.

"Yeah, unfortunately you still have to be 21 to buy alcohol in North Carolina." He joked back at her, making them both smile. "But, luckily, I have something better." He reached into the basket again and this time produced a thermos and two cups.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Would I ever dare to have it be anything else?" He grinned at her before setting the cups down, twisting the top of the thermos off, and pouring a generous amount of the steaming liquid into each of the cups.

"I don't suppose you have…." she trailed off when he simply smirked and pulled a container of cinnamon from the basket.

"It's like you never knew me at all," he joked, and she couldn't help but laugh at that. He added a dash of cinnamon to the top of her cup before handing it to her and replacing the cinnamon in the picnic basket. They both dug into their food, enjoying the meal and each other's company.

The conversation stayed on safe ground. They talked about high school and friends, Emma asked about how he'd met Robin, and he asked her about her family and their friends back home. As they talked, it felt to them much like a song you haven't heard in years. At one point, you knew every word, trying and failing to imagine your life before you heard this song. As it plays, though, you realize you've forgotten it, or maybe it doesn't quite sound like you remember because it's been so long since you last heard it. But as you listen to it, it comes back to you. It sounds and feels just like it used to, and you wonder how you'd ever gone so long without listening to it.

Without even realizing it, Emma and Neal fell back into that same rhythm that they'd developed when they were younger.

Eventually, their table topics ran dry and they sat in comfortable silence,shoulders brushing now that they no longer had the vegetable plate in between them. They both stared out to the ocean, wondering where they went from here.

"I can't believe you kept the necklace," Neal said, glancing at the swan pendant hanging from her neck before looking her in the eyes.

"Of course I did." Emma sounded so sure of herself when she said it. "It was all I had left of you."

Neal's hand went to the back of her neck, his thumb rubbing small circles on her skin. Without saying a word, he pressed a kiss to her forehead, and she leaned into his affection like it was a lifeline. He moved away slightly, looking down at her face before he leaned in once more and his lips reunited with hers at last. It was a far more loaded kiss than they'd shared years ago, as they poured everything they'd felt while they'd been separated into the gentle brush of their lips. They pulled away and sat with their foreheads together, Neal's hand still cradling Emma's neck.

Neither of them paid any mind to the slow drizzle that began to fall from the sky, but that drizzle soon turned into a heavy downpour, and Emma squealed as the cold rain pelted the two of them. They stood and quickly gathered the remnants of their dinner, tossing them back into the picnic basket as well as the blanket they'd been sitting on. Emma pulled her jacket on and tugged the hood over her head, and Neal soon followed her lead.

"Come on," he said as he grabbed Emma's hand in his own, scooping up the basket with the other. They took off running down the beach, hand in hand, though their clothes were already soaked through with rain. Half-expecting him to lead her back to her and Wendy's house, she was pleasantly surprised when found themselves at the door of a different beach house. Neal dropped her hand to pull a key from the pocket of his shorts and unlocked the door. They stepped in, out of the rain, without a word.

"This is where you've been living?" Emma questioned.

"For the summer, yeah. It actually belongs to Robin's uncle, though he's been letting us use it while we work at the carnival. Robin and I share it, but he's gone off on a date of his own tonight."

"So it's just you and me?"

"Just you and me."

The distance between them suddenly became nonexistent, and in a brief coherent thought before he turned himself over to the intense need burning inside of him, Neal couldn't help but think that he was glad he'd been unable to buy any alcohol for their date.

There was no way he'd ever want to forget this night.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

A/N: I think I just beat my own record for staying up late to write. Longest chapter yet. Totally worth it. I gave our couple some happiness. Be prepared to watch it be ripped away very soon.

As always, leave a review!